Internet's holy grail is 100 times faster than any decent connection in area

Published 8:22 pm, Saturday, July 13, 2013

That's because despite this area being known as Tech Valley, it's still pretty average when it comes to residential high-speed Internet service.

Internet speeds are measured by how many "bits" or pieces of information can be moved through a connection in a second.

The difference between a megabit and a gigabit connection is huge. Tasks such as downloading photos or a movie that might take 10 minutes will happen in just seconds.

"The speeds are screaming fast," said Kevin O'Connor, CEO of Tech Valley Communications in Albany, which can offer 10 gigabit service to business customers over its fiber optic network. "It's no comparison."

Tech Valley Communications doesn't offer gigabit Internet service to residential customers, although O'Connor said that some builders have been asking his company to provide it to their new apartment complexes.

So where in the U.S. are the fastest residential Internet connections available?

Google has made Kansas City and Provo, Utah so-called "gigabit" cities by launching its Google Fiber network there. Google said Austin, Texas, is next.

Gigabit speed is the holy grail of Internet service and is over 100 times faster than a decent connection in the Capital Region, where companies like Time Warner Cable and Verizon offer megabit speeds.

Verizon's fiber optic network, FiOS, currently offers the fastest home Internet speeds in the Capital Region, although the price goes up rapidly with the faster speeds. For instance, the FiOS service that offers downloads at 150 megabits per second costs $130 a month.

Time Warner Cable's fastest local Internet service can download files at 50 Mbps at a cost of $75 a month.

It's easy to see why people have been clamoring for Google Fiber. The company, which calls the areas where it builds its network "fiberhoods," offers download speeds of 1 gigabit-per-second at $70 a month, which is essentially half the price and seven times as fast as the best offer in the Capital Region.

There are also about 20 communities scattered across the country where gigabit Internet service using fiber-optic networks is readily available for residential customers, according to the Fiber to the Home Council based in Oregon. The list includes places like Burlington, Vt., Chattanooga, Tenn., and Lafayette, La. where either municipalities or private companies have taken the leap to offer gigabit speed Internet to home customers.

The Capital Region isn't on that list. Nor are any cities in New York state.

A company in Syracuse called New Visions Communications recently said it will begin offering gigabit Internet service to its customers.

Federal regulators would like Albany and other cities to get gigabit speed Internet in the coming years. In January, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski called for at least one gigabit-speed community in each state by 2015. He said the goal would help "drive economic growth and economic competitiveness."

In Europe and Asia and even in Australia, gigabit speed Internet is much more commonplace.

But does gigabit speed really matter to the average consumer? Isn't there such a thing as too much speed? What's the point really?

For instance, just a few years ago, streaming video was only available to high-end Internet users, but today it is commonplace.

But things like 3-D movies or multi-user voice and video connections still require more bandwidth than most people can access at their homes today.

"As more bandwidth becomes available, more and more of these services become accessible at lower cost," Hendler said.

New York state policy makers have been focusing most of their efforts on the concept of universal broadband, which is the concept of trying to ensure that as many people as possible have access to high-speed Internet.

In March, the Cuomo administration announced $25 million in funding for broadband Internet expansion through the state's Connect NY program that is expected to bring high-speed Internet for the first time to 153,000 households in the state.

Fiber optic lines are needed for high-speed Internet service, but most of the fiber had been built in urban areas of the state, said David Salway, director of the New York State Broadband Program Office. There are nearly 40 counties in the state with no fiber at all.

Hudson Valley Wireless, based in Colonie, won a $2 million grant through the Connect NY program to provide high-speed Internet service to Washington and Rensselaer counties. It will use its wireless technology that depends on a network of radio towers tied into a fiber connection located at its data center in Niskayuna.

Hudson Valley Wireless President John Guzzo said it's too expensive for cable companies to build their networks in rural areas of the state, and his radio towers are more effective than satellite service or cell phone networks, which he said were originally designed only to carry telephone calls, not huge amounts of data.

Time Warner Cable has also been awarded $5 million to expand its network to areas of the state that don't have high-speed Internet. The biggest deployment will be in the town of Grafton, where even reliable cellphone service is hard to come by today.